About Me (0)

Posted 7 July, 2006 in

The Essentials

Jason Crane was born in Lenox, Massachusetts. He’s a jazz broadcaster and writer. He’s a husband and father. And he rides a bicycle.

Jason hosts the online jazz interview show The Jazz Session, featuring in-depth interviews with jazz musicians from around the world. The Jazz Session is presented by AllAboutJazz.com, the Web’s leading source for jazz news, reviews, mp3 downloads and more.

Jason’s first collection of poems, Unexpected Sunlight (FootHills Publishing, 2010), is now available. His work has been published in Blue Collar Review, qarrtsiluni , Meat For Tea, State of Emergency: Chicago Poets Address The Gulf Crisis, Poets For Living Waters and is forthcoming in Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac.

The Excruciating Details

Over the years, Jason has worked as a grocery stock clerk, cashier, bank teller, waiter, professional musician, radio announcer, television/radio script writer, Web site editor, newspaper and wire-service copy editor, radio reporter, newspaper page designer, union organizer, nonprofit development director, radio station manager, talk show host, stay-at-home dad, union organizing director, union representative, and communications/public relations specialist.

Jason was born in Lenox, Massachusetts, in 1973. He’s moved 27 times since then, including stints in Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Japan.

Jason’s first professional career was as a saxophonist. He performed from Tucson to Tokyo to South Carolina. It was in Tucson in 1996 that Jason met and married his wife, Jennifer. Jason and Jennifer’s first son, Bernie, was born in November 2002. Their second son, John, was born in March 2006.

Jason speaks Japanese because he spent three years in Japan, first as a student, then as an editor, journalist and musician.

Jason’s radio career began at the State University of New York at Potsdam in 1991, followed by gigs at KUAZ (jazz) and KUAT (classical) in Tucson, AZ; Bloomberg Information Television & Radio in Tokyo; NPR’s Morning Edition; and WXXI in Rochester, NY.

From late 2001 to late 2004, Jason worked at Jazz90.1 (WGMC), a 24-hour community jazz station in Rochester, NY, where he served as station manager and hosted the PM drive show Traffic Jam. He also interviewed more than 200 of the great names in jazz.

While in Rochester, Jason chaired the local Green Party; announced vintage baseball games; ran for city council; co-founded the Rochester Restraint Coalition; and staged a 53-person reading of Walt Whitman’s epic poem “Song of Myself.” He served as vice president of the board at Abundance Cooperative Market and leader of the 24th LD Democratic Committee. He also hosted The Jason Crane Show, a weekly progressive talk show that aired in 2005 on Rochester’s Air America Radio affiliate.

From 2005-2009, Jason was an organizer and union representative in Rochester, NY, and Albany, NY, for the labor union UNITE HERE.

Jason worked for Capital Region BOCES as a communications specialist, providing communications and public relations help to school districts in the Albany area.

Jason is currently the executive director of the New York Bicycling Coalition, a statewide advocacy organization.

In 2008, Jason served on the Parents Panel of the Albany Times Union newspaper and on the board of the New York Bicycling Coalition.

Jason is the founder and editor of RocBike.com, an online gathering place for bike commuters and other cyclists in upstate New York.

Jason is a member of the Rotary Club of Albany, and is serving as the club’s vice president for the 2010-11 Rotary year, which runs from July-June. (Yes, he knows your dad was probably in Rotary, too.)

Last but not least, Jason writes interviews and reviews for All About Jazz, the world’s most visited jazz site, and for The Island Packet newspaper on Hilton Head Island, SC.

Photo credits: (TOP) Joe Bell; (MIDDLE) Keith J. Spencer; (BOTTOM) Rome Celli

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